Renny rose slowly to his feet. His gaze swept the terrified archers to the threshold of the door. With a roar like that of some southern panther maddened with its wounds, once more he hurled himself upon the treacherous Bar.
His onslaught hurled the dagger from the nerveless hand of the horror-struck Memphite. For that worthy stood gazing, as if fascinated, at the upturned face of the dead Bhanar.
They grappled, tripped and fell, rolling over and over, now one seeming to gain the mastery, now the other. Above their writhing forms the archers awaited their opportunity.
Kneeling at the base of the pedestal the terrified little Princess alone made outcry, sending out upon the still evening air shriek upon shriek, intermingled with peals of frenzied laughter.
A slight lessening of the grip and Renny’s powerful hand stole towards Bar’s jeweled throat. A snap, a quiver of the big limbs and the Memphite lay motionless.
Renny staggered like a drunken man to his feet. Stealthily Wenamon the archer approached, with somewhat of the caution with which one might beard a wounded lion in its den. His bow had been cast aside. A dagger gleamed in his raised hand.
Renny’s swaying figure lurched heavily towards the statue of the Princess, to the base of which the Princess herself still clung. As his fingers gripped its flower-festooned base, Wenamon’s dagger flashed.
Renny suddenly straightened himself. His bloodshot eyes sought those of the Princess, who stood rooted to the spot.
“Sesen! Sesen,” he cried, and fell dead at her feet.
The city of Kadesh lay gleaming in the evening sunlight at the upper end of that vast plain which stretched northward to the Lake Country. As viewed from Shabtuna, where the Egyptian army was now encamped, it seemed a veritable city of towers.
Along the eastern front of this Asiatic city the waters of the Orontes glittered like a straight Hittite sword. The high, machicolated gate-towers, on the eastern side, were approached by a causeway and a broad flight of stone steps. Protected by a white wall on either side, these steps rose from the very waters of the turgid Orontes itself.
The city towers were black with people, frenzied women for the most part. Their piercing shrieks, now of exultation, now of despair, floated out upon the flashing waters of the broad river. The sounds reached the ears of Ramses, the Egyptian general, where he stood.